As Americans can see and as the Pew Research Center and other think tanks have documented, the nation has become more polarized in the past couple decades. Partisans get news from opinionated websites, which, fueled by social media, share and reinforce biased views. The other side, as if it’s ever that simple, is often described as stupid, unpatriotic or worse. It’s a recipe for division and disaster.

This is what made a Jan. 15 report in The Atlantic so heartening. Out of the spotlight, a powerful civic reform movement has been gaining steam in recent years. It’s redistricting reform, which seeks to establish far more swing districts to ensure politicians are receptive to the concerns of more of their constituents. The leader of the cause: former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who helped win passage of ballot initiatives in 2008 and 2010 that required state legislative and congressional districts be drawn by an independent commission.

In November, Schwarzenegger helped get similar ballot measures approved in Colorado, Michigan, Missouri and Utah. As a result, about one-third of the nation’s 435 House districts are now divvied up independently. Not done, Schwarzenegger, Common Cause and a powerful new ally — President Barack Obama — are working to add Arkansas, Florida, New Jersey, South Carolina and Virginia to the list. Schwarzenegger’s hope is that in the redistricting triggered by the 2020 census, two-thirds of House seats will be independently shaped.

Obama’s motives are different than Schwarzenegger’s. He sees partisan gerrymandering as unfairly keeping Democrats from power in Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where they won more total votes than Republicans in recent elections but were unable to gain any legislative majorities. Democrats have a checkered past, too. Their 2011 gerrymander in Maryland was awful.

Against that backdrop, authorities from the two main parties leading a constructive movement is a sight for sore eyes. And it may be the only solution to this daunting political problem. Hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court would invalidate extreme gerrymandering were dashed again last June when the court’s conservative majority reaffirmed its longstanding position of only overturning state electoral districts if they disempower racial minorities.

That means it’s up to the states that need it to come up with fairer elections — and for influential Democratic and Republican leaders to lend a hand.